Daytona Beach FL Forest Fire Update

Florida residents and visitors who are looking for updates on the wildfire situation, here's the information I've been able to gleen so far this week. I know a lot of you have been looking for information on the recent Florida fires, since I've been getting comments on my previous blog post, about the fires from last year. So to avoid confusion, I decided I'd better post some updated information for 2008.

It started as a brushfire on Sunday. And then...

This past Monday, a 600 acre brush fire broke out in Daytona Beach, very near the LPGA Golf and Country Club/housing development and mandatory evacuations were being ordered. The irony is, Volusia county has very little natural gas. Most people who want to cook on a gas stove, need to have propane tanks. Approximatelly 75-80% of our homes are strictly electric. But LPGA is one of the few locations that actually has natural gas, which caused the fear levels to be raised up a notch. It's also important to mention that the Halifax Humane Society is in that same area and the animals had to be evacuated as well!

Now to backtrack a little bit, to a time which I just realized was actually a decade ago, when it seemed like the entire state was on fire. At that time, the wind was blowing and the fire was jumping across I-95, making it impossible to contain. Then, when the fire fighters thought they had the fire put out, it would just start again, a few hundred yards from where the fire fighters had just extinguished the fire. What was happening was, the fire was actually travelling underground, burning the tree and shrub roots, then coming back to the surface in another location. Since that time, our fire departments have posted daily notices pertaining to the level of fire threats for each particular day. Our fire fighters have also continuously done controlled burns, to keep the shrubs and underbrush from becoming as think and hazardous as in the past. Thanks to these precautionary measures, this year's fires haven't been travelling at the speed, or by the same methods as in previous years. But, I suppose it's needless to say that areas that have natural gas sources require extra concern and precaution. So there were 600 mandatory evacuations in the LPGA area on Monday, but NO HOUSING DAMAGE was incurred, and no power outages were reported, thanks to the 9 fire departments that were fighting those fires!

On Tuesday, the fires continued to burn in the LPGA area and now had encompassed 800 acres, but although these were now contained, fires were being reported in other parts of the state, and Governor Charlie Crist declared a State of Emergency. I had to drive on I-95 for a while on Tuesday, to install a sign and flyer box on one of my listings in Edgewater, and noticed several warning signs that at some future point, travelers would have to exit the interstate becuase of the fires, so I assume they have traveled further south. Thankfully, I didn't encounter any problems between Port Orange and Edgewater.

Today (Wednesday) I've seen no news about any fires in Volusia county, but there are smoke warnings for those who have allergies, asthma and other breathing difficulties.

See photos and a slide show of the LPGA forest fires.

Buy or Sell Daytona Beach real estate